Talking to People Who are Afraid a Permaculture Garden Will Look Messy

One of the things I'm trying to get better at is how I say things. I need some help figuring out a better way of answering concerns about permaculture gardening based on aesthetics. I usually end up feeling frustrated and I don't think I say things the best way once I'm feeling frustrated. It has never helped me to tell people that we have to change what we call beautiful.

How do you tell people that you won't create an eyesore?

One example is raised bed. In general, I'm not a fan of raiseds except in certain instances. Some people insist that if it's not in a raised bed it looks ugly even if you plant the same things in the same way in the ground. Sometimes raised beds are just not very good in my experience, but "they" don't know that. They're just going off of conventional assumptions. The same goes for mulch. I find it hard to tell them to try a different method without coming off like I know what I'm talking about and they know nothing. (I'm probably not as bad as I blame myself, but it is an area for growth for me.)

Thanks, in advance, for your suggestions.

Photographs of beautiful permaculture gardens would be more convincing to a lot of people than an explanation, I think.  It seems to me almost any garden style could be implemented in a permacultural way.  I think this is one of our biggest challenges as permaculturalists, to make it more attractive to regular folks.  The average permaculture garden looks like a weed patch.  I personally love weed patches but I can recognize that most other people don't. 

Hi
I would like to say let your garden do the talking for you. I started my garden 2 years ago. Did not even know the term permaculture at the time. Just started to use vegetable garden practices on grander scale. Treating things like fruit trees as long term veggies than planting companions like flowers to attract bees, onion and garlic to decrease pest. Next thing I found permaculture it reaffirmed the direction I was going. The guild ideas, then I started to add fruiting bushes. All of my garden is visible and I get lots of positive feed back. Anyone one who asks gets tour of garden no preaching necessary. 

i second the you just have to show them, and explain why. don't try and convince them, they need to make that step themselves. i have tried to teach people about certain things, and they just cant grasp the concept verbally, but when they see it in action. it hits them like a wall.

i also think something comes in to play paul always mentions. how you need to just bump them up enough with something else they agree on, and to where that original idea doesn't sound so crazy, like a half way point. and from there they will then think that next step isnt so bad, until they have a permaculture garden. because if you try and go full on permaculture people will be turned off thinking you wacko with all the knowledge that goes against everything everyone knows.

Part of the challenge is that most modern people cannot see what is happening in a garden, and that illegibility is confusing and confusion is frightening.  So you as a guide is the necessary compliment to your garden.

I had one mentor tell me, "with a few clean lines and even surfaces, you can get away with anything."  So incorporating some modern landscape design into permaculture design is in my mind part of the psychological transition.  Let people have some kind of anchor point in your garden where they have "control" and they can explore letting go of "control"

We need more and better models everywhere.  Children see the beauty until we train them to the conformity and violence of the modern landscape.

Another mentor tells me, "if you don't piss someone off you are likely not doing anything..."

fruit trees are so beautiful in the spring, and who wouldn't love all the flowering insect attractors..they probably would accept it better if mulch was topped with some "boughten type" mulch like wood chips..rather than just plopping down piles of pulled weeds as mulch..but hey plants are beautiful

if there are restrictions as to what you can plant, then you have to be careful, but if there aren't, plant what you want but try to be considerate of the neighbors..like not planting something that will drop it's fruit on their side of the property line.

Fruit trees are beautiful in spring and all other seasons as well. Most people do not even known that the trees will contain fruit. It is a great kick to me to see the looks on peoples faces when they learn that most of the things planted produce something edible. I am always on the hunt for new and varied plants. Elderberry plants always seem to be misunderstood. Gooseberries and currants most just know that at one time they were outlawed. Well I do not live any where near pines and am glad that is no longer the case. 

Just seems like while I'm on a roll here. I will add that one of the most common questions or concern that most people seem to have is how do you plant edibles without fences or netting keep out pest. The plants are beautiful enough on own right to warrant being planted. I do not mind sharing with birds, chipmunks, and the occasional deer. I always seem to get something to eat and watching the birds without having to buy any food to bring them in is great . I also believe they keep insects in check. All just part of permaculture everything working together. One without the other would be a great lost.   

Do you know those little white fences you can shove in the ground? You buy them at the garden store and they are only about a foot tall.

I bet that would totally change the appearance of the garden, as your eyes would go to the white fence instead of to the asparagus or whatever behind it.

Do you know those little white fences you can shove in the ground? You buy them at the garden store and they are only about a foot tall.

I bet that would totally change the appearance of the garden, as your eyes would go to the white fence instead of to the asparagus or whatever behind it.

Duh! Too sImple idea an idea for my complicated brain to have thought up. LOL. That would change the appearance of things. Combined with pavers for paths they could give the impression of very neatly laid out garden beds. I've used pavers to lay out beds before, but I can see that adding those little picket fences would add a little extra visual appeal.

Photographs of beautiful permaculture gardens would be more convincing to a lot of people than an explanation, I think.

Great idea! I'm down with the thought of having a garden to demonstrate what you're talking about, but you can't carry your garden in your pocket to show people...unless you carry photo documentation with you. You could keep them in your car or bag so that you always have them with you to show people you strike up the conversation with.

Right now my challenge is that I'm trying to get garden space so I don't have a garden to photo. My living situation doesn't come with a place to garden. I'm close to obtaining space at a non-big box bookstore. I've taken the route of presenting the idea of an edible flower salad garden. I received an email from one of the owners yesterday saying that she's really interested in it and is talking to the other owner. I'm hoping this will finally be my first garden here in Atlanta. It was relatively easy getting garden space where I lived before. Here I have found it a lot harder. I'll definitely take photos of the garden before and after.

I like the idea of including hardscaping in permaculture designs to make them more conventionally attractive.  I'm doing a lot of rockwork on my place, because I have a lot of rocks.  Neat mulches and pavements could go a long way toward making a permaculture garden more accessible, both literally and figuratively.    Not having to wade through the shrubbery is a big plus, in my opinion.

I network extensively with my local garden club, Food Security network, Farmer's groups, churches, schools etc. and offer up my little permaculture farm for tours, classes, exchanges, drop-bys etc.

If people visit your place, they are emotionally, intellectually, visually or whatever impacted by what they see, or experience. It draws down your experience into theirs in an experiential way. 

There's one reason I don't post pictures of my garden on forums or profiles: it's ugly as hell.

It really looks like an abandoned lot, let go to jungle.  No one in their right mind would trust me to design anything upon seeing pictures of my garden. 

And truth be told, it almost is that abandoned lot.  I haven't planted lettuce in 4 years.  I just let some go to seed, and I have lettuce the next year with absolutely no work.  Cut some, leave some.  My favorite green is dandelion, and I never have to plant, fertilize, or otherwise maintain it.  I just cut some. 

The only sign I do any work at all... is tomato cages.  I love my maters.  The only crop I don't direct seed, or let happen on its own.

Friends come over to see my garden.  They look at my yard and ask where the garden is. 

"You're standing on it.  Quit molesting my rutabagas!"

I haven't pulled a weed since June.

Part of the challenge is that most modern people cannot see what is happening in a garden, and that illegibility is confusing and confusion is frightening.  So you as a guide is the necessary compliment to your garden.

Totally agree.  If you don't know the 20 plants in that mass of leaves then it just looks like a mess.

I think we have to find ways to help people see the beauty of permaculture gardens rather than try to convert the gardens to meet peoples expectations.  How did we all get to where we are in our understanding, and how can we share that with others?

To me the beauty of permaculture gardens is twofold: firstly it is about the diverse plants and flowers, but it is also about understanding all of the benefits that the garden brings us.  It's kinda like solar panels - many see them as an eyesore, but I look at them and see cleaner electricity, which is beautiful.

TheDirtSurgeon wrote:I haven't pulled a weed since June.

this is where suburban types like me have to compromise.  all my food is in raised beds.  i've dug down and done some hugelkultur-ish ammendments under the beds and work in lots and lots of compost from the hens.

weeds get you a ticket from the city.  i use a lot of cardboard mulching along paths to keep weeds down and around the raised beds too.  it saves me a lot of time and effort.

i think rock borders and other salvaged materials can be aesthetically pleasing.  trellis beans, cukes, and squash.  dumbell weighting and wooden A-frames for tomatoes; play with levels that way.  chop and drop techniques are going to be a bit more difficult (compost in bins and then scatter on beds?).

Hugh H. wrote:

I think we have to find ways to help people see the beauty of permaculture gardens rather than try to convert the gardens to meet peoples expectations. 

Can't we do both? 

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
Can't we do both?   

I think that yards visible to the street pretty much should be less wild looking if you want to keep the neighbors happy. There's much for freedom in yards out of view from the street.

Some permies in Jacksonville recently got an order to 'cut down all them weeds or pay $500 a day' - they fought back and won!  The 'Florida Friendly' landscaping law to promote xeriscaping and ecologically sound lawns trumps local codes.

http://www.folioweekly.com/documents/folio0920wkl007.pdf

I think this is a cultural thing.  Here in Australia everyone can usually do what they want with their yard, front and back.  That is changing a little in new development suburbs where you are mandated to have the same fence, lawn, mow it, etc.  But in most areas you can let your garden go to weeds and no-one can do anything about it.

I'm not advocating all weeds, but I think we should be pushing the boundaries and trying to demonstrate a different way of doing things that has its own form of beauty, rather than trying to fit in and thus reinforce existing attitudes to landscaping.

Hugh H. wrote:

I'm not advocating all weeds, but I think we should be pushing the boundaries and trying to demonstrate a different way of doing things that has its own form of beauty, rather than trying to fit in.

I think we should try both!  Trying to adapt existing gardening styles to permaculture is, I think, a worthy endeavor.    If a front yard, for instance, was designed as a traditional decorative garden but using permacultural techniques and edible plants, the backyard could perhaps be free to be less conventionally designed.

Personally I love the French decorative vegetable garden style (potager).  I think it would be of value to adapt this form to permaculture and in fact I was trying to do so until I found I was not able to do it in my climate.  But one could certainly do it in the climate of France or similar mild temperate or Mediterranean climate, in my opinion.  My new kitchen garden is also going to be in a decorative style, but not using the traditional rectangular and square shapes of the potager, it is rather in a circle and will use the spiral as the defining shape. 

"Weed" is such a loaded, subjective word. In the US, 'lawn order' is really about uniformity and promoting a particular aesthetic that was developed by rich gentry with large open meadows that morphed into the suburban lawn.

Personally I love "weeds."  Most of them are more nutritious than conventional vegetables.    Sadly, the best weeds don't seem to want to grow for me. 

I said weeds, what I really meant was neglect.  Any type of garden will look scruffy if it is neglected for too long, though permaculture gardens are probably less likely to fall into neglect in a hurry if they are well designed.  What I am advocating is a well cared for garden, but one that doesn't necessarily meet all the demands of uniformity and straight lines that some people seem to expect.

What sort of problems did you have adapting the potager style to your climate, Ludi?  The humidity?

Severe heat and drought!    The location is just too exposed and I can't install a proper wall around it a la French chateau potager, so that location is going to be a prairie garden, eventually. 

Paul Cereghino wrote:
We need more and better models everywhere.  Children see the beauty until we train them to the conformity and violence of the modern landscape.

This!

In general as a group people have become completely disconnected with nature. What we need to do is help reconnect people with nature and what a natural setting really is. Nowhere in nature has aesthetics ever been a design concern. When we make a conscious decision to put aesthetics first we often lose sight of the bigger picture.

In this case the problem truly is the solution once again (he really hit on something with this statement). We tend to think that chaos is bad and order is good and so set out to make everything nice and orderly without ever once thinking if we should, only that we can and if we can we will. We are now starting to see the ramifications of those actions all over the planet.

Permaculture is based in natural processes; observing nature and mimicking natural processes to benefit all. Aesthetics being a personal idiosyncrasy means almost everyone can have a different opinion on it. Some degree of aesthetics can certainly come into play but it should never come to the detriment of nature.

BenjaminBurchall wrote:
How do you tell people that you won't create an eyesore?

Honestly you cannot. People with these kind of strong opinions are the only ones who can change their own minds. As discussed elsewhere in the thread the best we can do is provide another better example and lead people to find natural beauty beautiful again.

A small example: Many of my friends like a very ordered existence, right down to their garden. Yet these same people come over and feel a real connection to nature at my house. People are always telling us how peaceful it is in our backyard and how full of life and color it is. They always comment of how well everything grows and how I always have something going on in the garden. Generally it leads to questions like: Why don't I have lizards all over my yard like you do? or Why is your garden still going strong and my isn't doing anything? I just explain the natural processes going on in my backyard and how I am trying to influence them and why they work they way they do while saving myself lots of time. Everyone is always interested, some go away with new ideas but most still go right back to what they were doing before...That is okay I can see I left a spark of inspiration, it is up to them to fan the flames.

Jeff

We can have it all. Design with zones in mind, Surely the zone closest to the house may look quite different than the zone further out. There are places I keep more conventional and others that are completely wild. This is what I think is so great about this.

I'm all for pushing the boundaries, but not to the point where we earn permaculture a bad name. I've come across quite a few people who have no interest in it all because all the permaculture gardens they saw looked like a patch of weeds.

I think we all have our aesthetic limits. I wouldn't want to walk out of my house to see the next door neighbor's idea of beauty is old rusted classic cars placed on the lawn splattered with bright paints, for instance. So I'd give my neighbors the same consideration I'd want. It's probably a good thing to not go so far from the expected aesthetic of a neighborhood in our public spaces in a direction we know will likely be considered undesirable if we want to attract positive interest. Within that there is a lot of latitude to create permaculture gardens that will fit our situation. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, does it? If you live under covenants & restrictions though, you could be prohibited from doing any permaculture in your public facing space.

BenjaminBurchall wrote:
If you live under covenants & restrictions though, you could be prohibited from doing any permaculture in your public facing space.

Or you might need to be extra creative in designing your permaculture garden.   

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
Or you might need to be extra creative in designing your permaculture garden.   

I'm all ears!  Let's say you live in a subdivision that only allows your front yard to be lawn no higher than 3" tall and maybe a tree (which they specify the types that you can choose from).  Ok, let's give a little more latitude. The C&Rs allow for you to have a some ornamental flowers flanking you front door. How would you permaculturize (Is that a word?) that other than maybe picking some ornamental flowers that are edible? Crack that nut!  

Don't forget...a sometimes the C&Rs tell you what kind of grass are allowed too. I would so never live in a place like this! Nah ah...no...never!

I think putting showy evergreen permaculture plants out front in high traffic areas is important if looks is a priority.  Since they don't lose their leaves, they will potentially look attractive year round.

BenjaminBurchall wrote:
I'm all ears!  Let's say you live in a subdivision that only allows your front yard to be lawn no higher than 3" tall and maybe a tree (which they specify the types that you can choose from). 

I think there are ways around most restrictions, if one is allowed any decorative plantings at all beyond grass and a tree or two.

How about some showy herbs and edible flowers out front. Maybe a crab apple as a tree. Crabs are pretty and will help pollinate apples. Side yard place an apple guild, [apple tree with garlic and onions for insects, some borrage to draw pollinators and add minerals, perhaps some daffodils to repel moles.]  Moving to backyard perhaps another tree guild  this time adding more shrubs and berries. Close to back door grow veggies. back corner of lot perhaps leave wild spot compost area. To some this might be sell out to others a great start. 

There are a lot of attractive edible plants that people do not recognize as vegetables. 

Tea plant (Camellia sinensis) would be good.  Most people probably wouldn't be able to tell it from any other camellia.

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
There are a lot of attractive edible plants that people do not recognize as vegetables. 

I know.  This is something that a lot of people struggle with. I have come across anything like a comprehensive resource of ornamental edibles. If there is one out there I'd like to know about it. If there isn't one, maybe we can just put together a list of all the edible ornamentals we know as a resource.

Sedums are another good one.  Particularly Sedum telephium and Sedum spectabile, which are mentioned in Martin Crawford's book.  They tolerate a fairly wide range of climates and are quite pretty in flower.  The leaves can be eaten in salads.

So here's a weird thought:

I was driving over to  a client's house today.  I stopped on a freeway offramp.  There was a bum, panhandling away.  I looked to his left, and what do I see?

Caragana arborescens!  Siberian pea-shrub!

It is a strange thing, being a person aware of ecologically-appropriate plant species....

BenjaminBurchall wrote:
I know.  This is something that a lot of people struggle with. I have come across anything like a comprehensive resource of ornamental edibles. If there is one out there I'd like to know about it. If there isn't one, maybe we can just put together a list of all the edible ornamentals we know as a resource.

The thing is, "ornamental" is so subjective.  Almost any plant can be ornamental if healthy and in the right setting, so it seems to me a list of edible plants is what we're really looking for, and a good one already exists        http://www.pfaf.org/user/default.aspx ;

http://server9.web-mania.com/users/pfafardea/leaflets/ediborn.php

Not saying it wouldn't be beneficial to produce a guidebook or webpage devoted to especially attractive edible plants, with photos showing how lovely they are.  That would be a great thing. 

This subject can be a two-edged sword.  In an urban/suburban neighborhood, if we are not in harmony with our neighbors to a certain extent, we are not in harmony with nature.  Being in harmony with the microbes, insects and other wildlife is a mute point if we live in constant conflict with the human element.

Small compromises can alleviate much of the conflict.  Making the garden appear intentional with stone-lined winding paths and small border fencing can do wonders in eliminating the feeling that you are doing nothing except letting nature take over.

Plants such as asparagus produce beautiful fern like foliage after harvest, and can add beauty to your edges.  You feast for weeks, and appease your neighbors all summer long.

John Polk wrote:
...if we are not in harmony with our neighbors to a certain extent, we are not in harmony with nature.  Being in harmony with the microbes, insects and other wildlife is a mute point if we live in constant conflict with the human element.

Yes!  I couldn't add anything more of value to that. Beautifully said in my book.